Welcome to Gaia! ::

Tanarah’s leg dangled free beneath her: one down loose over the lip of the wooden crate she’d propped herself on, the other tucked up to her chest. In the hand opposite, she held a fruit, from which she ate as she waited. A small handful of coins weighted down her left pocket, meant at least as a means to pick up a few things for her fathers. For the moment, however, in the alley between two clay-bricked market shops and bathed half in sun and half in shadow, she took the opportunity to people watch.

The first time she’d witnessed a theft herself — and recognized it for what it was — she had been in Miss Takhi’s company with her sister, out to see a play event put on by travelling performers in town at the time. Since then, she had kept her eyes more open. It fascinated her, once she started to pay attention, just how much went on between people that seemed to go unnoticed and unseen on a casual stroll through the market, but still occurred just the same, every day.

More than the rest of the market’s occurrences, however, the street thieves held her attention most securely. She knew, from the upbringing she’d had and from a base level of common sense, that act was ‘wrong.’ Taking from others without compensating them deprived them of something they had — theoretically — earned fairly of their own right and ought not have taken again without their consent. The concept, though, of balancing quiet and quick, planning and spontaneity, people sense and wit on one’s feet, appealed to a part of her strongly enough that, over time, her curiosity got the better of her.

Bad people did bad things every day. That was fact.

People hurt each other, stabbed each other, poisoned and betrayed each other. She had seen the results being dragged in all manner of states into the floor of her fathers’ home so that they could be tended to whether they deserved it or not. Whether they earned it or not. Whether they paid for it or not.

Lithian applied no rules, there, other than that the sick needed healing, and until proven otherwise, all living wounded were innocent enough to merit his aid. This was the state of the world as it was.

As such, Tanarah reasoned, so long as she didn’t hurt anyone, it couldn’t really be that wrong. It would be a game, perhaps, if she could learn it. But that all still depended on if she could learn it—

When her eyes caught on a familiar shape two allies down, just to the side of fruit vendor’s stall, Tanarah paused mid-bite, and watched. One, two. What do we do? Three, four. They chained the door. Five, six…

The instant the thief moved, Tanarah set her fruit aside, and slipped off her barrel, moving into the flux and flow of the crowd. By the time she got near to the alley, they had pulled back into it. When she rounded in, however, stepping into the shade of it, her target glanced back over their shoulder. For a moment, they made eye contact. Tanarah opened her mouth. The thief ran.

“Hey—wait!” When that, clearly, was not going to be effective, Tana huffed beneath her breath, and broke into a sprint after them.

Down one alley, out the opposite, through the crowds and over. The child, not much younger than her — if at all — could run, she gave them that. But so could she, and the quicker her pulse moved, pushing her breath hard through her lungs, the more determined she became to—

Then, for a moment she lost sight of them.

Tanarah narrowed her eyes, heart thudding fast and hard against the inner wall of her chest as she panted, scanning the scene. Down that alley is where she’d last seen anything, but given their patterns in the past several darts — Tanarah cut straight up the main path, moving for two buildings and then slipping down the joining alley of a third. When she reached the edge of it, she slowed her pace, catching her breath and waiting.

A familiar bright blue swath of cloth, patterned in yellow came into view, backing up towards the edge of the alley. Tanarah snatched. The thief yelped, jerking against her grip and forward. She dragged and slung. For the span of several heartbeats, she held them there, to the wall, each staring at the other, equally breathless. Then, her ‘captive’ struck — or, at least attempted to, fumbling to grab a small blade from at their side. When Tanarah knocked it aside and kicked it down the alley, the child fought physically: ramming themself forward, clawing, punching, and attempting to squirm away.

She wasn’t that much larger than them, perhaps only a year older, but their familiarity with physical combat was clearly subpar, and it could not have been a full minute before both were on the ground, Tanarah astride the other at the hips and holding their arms pinned despite their squirming.

“Would you stop,” Tana insisted.

Beneath her, the thief narrowed their eyes. Blue eyes. Dusty blonde hair, though smattered with dirt, and tan skin, marked on one side with rocky, unevenly sized blue scales. A peisio, Tanarah concluded. Like her father.

“Ge’ff…” the thief grunted, and for a moment, Tanarah squinted, eyeing them.

“…what?”

“Said,” they grit out, pinning her with a glower. “Get. Off…”

“Gonna make me?” she countered, but relaxed her grip a touch just the same. She felt, after all, that she’d proven by now that they weren’t getting away unless she let them. “You’re right terrible with that blade o’ yours. Do you ‘ave a name?”

“…you’re a loon.”

“That’s a strange name,” Tana said. “I’d be rather cross with my folks and not ready to admit it to most people if they called me anything like—”

“S’not my name,” the thief snapped, huffing and jerking to get out from under her—to no avail. “You’re fat. Get off.”

“‘M not fat. But you’re a thief. And I’d like to know your name.”

Her captive froze. For an instant, they stared openly, then, their glower darkened. “I didn’t steal nothin’—”

“Anythin’.”

“…what?”

“Nevermind it,” Tana said. “I don’t care that you stole it other than that I wanna know how you learnt to and why you do.”

“…”

She eyed them. “What?”

“…you spied me, you chased me all this way, all over th’ town, you attacked me, an’ accused me o’ things, an’ then y’ say you don’t even care iffin’ I stole nothin’?”

“I said I care. Just not like I want you to get caught. I wanna know how you do it, gettin’ off with somethin’ that no one notices like that over and again.”

Her captive looked unconvinced. “You noticed…”

“I was payin’ attention.” Tanarah reached, flicking two fingers through the other’s hair. “You a boy or a girl?”

Immediately they jerked, twitching their head away from the touch and sending her a seething look. “Do I look like a girl t’ you?”

Tanarah shrugged. “Could be. Boy, then?”

They — or he — scowled. “You are a loon. Get off.”

“And make me, then?”

Scrabbling, squirming, fussing, pushing and wriggling incurred. He jerked, she adjusted. He lurched, she re-pinned. After some decent about of interplay, he wound up on his chest, still pinned, face to the dirt. When he huffed, a puff of it moved out like a cloud from before his lips. “You’re stupid heavy for a girl…”

“You bein’ sorry at gettin’ up’s got naught to do with me,” Tana said.

“What do you want?”

“Want you to teach me how to do things and not get seen or caught.”

“Doesn’t seem I’m so good at either,” the boy snapped. “Why do you wanna learn anythin’ from me?”

“It looks fun.”

“It’s not a game.”

“It could be—”

“It’s not!” The boy, if anything, seemed more adamant about this single point than any other. “And you—” He jabbed a finger forward against her chest to emphasize his point, “—with your…” He gestured vaguely, “…nice getup and pretty blades, won’t ever understand that if you haven’t nee—”

“You like my blades?” Tanarah asked, beaming. He sent her a withering glower. “I’m Tanarah.” A pause. “I could…pay you somethin’, if you—?”

“I don’t want your stupid rich girl coin, and I don’t trust you, or know you—”

“You could know me a bit if you’d talk instead of just fussing so much.” When Tanarah shifted to rise, he immediately scrambled, darting towards his blade. She snatched it up, standing and pulling away in a gesture, and met his glare when he shot it to her. She glanced to the blade, testing its weight. It wasn’t especially good quality, but… “I could teach you not to be so shite with a weapon in trade.”

His blush, which started as two pink pinpricks of heat in his cheeks, rapidly spread to take over his entire face, which she found — fascinating in a very strange way. She tilted her head and took a step forward, offering a hand.

“Tanarah?”

The boy eyed her hand, bit his lip, and then pushed to a stand, face still decidedly pink as he dusted his hands down his front. “Li.”

Tanarah blinked. Waited. Then: “That’s it?”

He shot her a look. “What do you mean ‘that’s it’? It’s my name, assumin’ that’s what you wanted.”

“It’s so short.”

“Sorry you don’t like it?” Li snapped. “It’s not my fault yours takes half a minute to say.”


“You haven’t even tried saying mine yet, it does not,” Tana huffed.

He folded his arms and looked down, studying the dirt.

A pause stretched between them.

At length, he spoke. “Can I have my blade back?”

“If you tell me where I can find you again and promise to meet me.”

“You’re so strange.”

“And ask nicely,” Tana said. “Because you’ve been so rude.”

“Been so r—? I have not been rude—you attacked me.”

“Stealin’ is rude.”

Li gave some mangled and muted, frustrated screech of a gesture, and then shut his eyes, rubbing his face. “I need to go, really…”

“And so…?”

“Even if I did tell you a place and promise to be there, there’s no tellin’ that I would. I could just lie to you, you know. I don’t see why you think this is a good idea.”

“So lie to me.” Tanarah shrugged. “I’ve seen you more’n once before. It isn’t a big town…not really so, anyhow. I can find you again. But until then, you probably won’t be gettin’ much better with your shite blade—”

“It’s not s**t. It’s mine. Give it back.”

“You’re in a strange spot to be assertin’ what is and isn’t yours…”

“The beach, on the east side, out after the last set of landing docks,” Li said. “Tomorrow, when the sun’s half down to the horizon from noon.”

Tana held out the blade. “Deal.”

He snatched it up, huffing, and then turned to dart off.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Li!”

If he said anything in response, which Tanarah privately doubted, she didn’t hear it over the sound of the market crowd. It was not until she went to purchase what she had been asked to attain that she noticed her pockets were empty. Not a single coin remained. She frowned.

If he didn’t show up as promised, she would have words for him next she caught up with him.